


bite your tongue 'til it tastes like blood

by redbelles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Rey (Star Wars), Dark Side Rey, F/M, Fix-It, Making canon make sense, Mind Control, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-10-18 02:24:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbelles/pseuds/redbelles
Summary: Such a long journey, a voice says, oil-slick, dripping with cruelty.You’ve been waiting for so long, Rey of Jakku. Rey of nothing, Rey of nowhere. But now, your journey nears its end. Let go, child. Give in.





	1. Chapter 1

The Death Star looms before her, the wreck casting everything around it in shadow. The ruins make her bones ache; it’s nothing like the downed ships on Jakku, skeletons rusting away in the sand, wind and emptiness the only things left in them. There’s something here, something awful.

There’s a sound like a ship touching down outside, but she ignores it. Whatever is in the wreck is _watching_ her. Waiting. Stalking.

She reaches for her saber—

_Not quick enough,_ she thinks, and _Force, help me—_ and then there is only darkness.

...

It steals over her like a dream, a cold fire that worms through her limbs and swallows her voice, burning through her like lightning. It crawls into her chest and sinks its claws into all the hollow spaces Jakku left behind, all the fear and the loneliness—

_Such a long journey_, a voice says, oil-slick, dripping with cruelty. _You’ve been waiting for so long, Rey of Jakku. Rey of nothing, Rey of nowhere. But now, your journey nears its end. Let go, child. Give in._

She wants to scream, but she has no voice, no body, nothing but mindless terror and the _thing_ crooning at her, smug and awful, smiling as she struggles.

The darkness burns, a fiery, writhing pain that strips away all her strength, flays her down to the bone. It’s like being caught in the heart of a sandstorm; no sky, no solid ground, only brutal, choking pain. Only screaming.

It goes on and on, endless, until the sound shifts, something cutting through the vortex.

Kylo.

For one breath—one bare sliver of an instant, just long enough for hope—she snaps back to her body. Kylo is striding through the ruins toward her, shouting her name. There is something broken and desperate in his gaze, something that makes her want to cry out, but then the moment is gone. The agony roiling through her steals her away again, taking her back to the storm, to lightning and wind and ceaseless pain.

The Force shrieks around her, cutting at her like shards of glass. Another brief glimpse of clarity; Kylo’s distress battering at the power that holds her, strong enough to shatter the air itself, but not strong enough to free her.

_Please—_

The pain gets worse. It hurts so badly, more terrible than anything she’s ever felt. She can’t think. Can’t breathe.

_Come now, Rey. Don’t struggle._

The infinite patience in those words frightens her more than the blinding pain. It promises eternity, endless and agonizing, no hope to cling to. Jakku all over again, this time with nothing to sustain her. She can’t do it. She’ll break.

_So give in._

Force help her, but she does.

...

She gives in and her body moves of its own accord.

Kylo is there, and her saber is in her hand, blade burning bright and furious against the dull gray of the wreck. Kylo is there. She swings.

He parries. Her name dies on his lips as she keeps swinging, moving through forms she’s never studied, never even dreamed of. Too controlled for Kylo, too vicious for Luke.

_A Sith form_, she thinks dully. The thought is distant, unimportant. Far away. Icy spray breaks over the deck, stinging against her skin.

There is salt on her face. Seawater, of course.

The oily darkness moves her like a marionette, sneering at her all the while.

_Not nearly so compliant as my last apprentice_, it says. _A shame._

Blackness rolls over her like the tide, and there is no more thought.

...

The darkness is cold and empty. Cold enough to burn.

She is there for a long time; maybe she’s always been there.

There is a blade in her hand. She swings, and does not think.

...

_Rey—_

...

A forest planet. The bridge of a Star Destroyer. Somewhere icy and windswept.

She fights the man wherever she sees him. He turns up too often for coincidence; perhaps he wants something from her. From the darkness?

The voice—Sidious, she knows now—laughs and laughs and laughs at the suggestion.

_You delightful little fool_, it mocks. _You were a masterstroke._

The blade burns in her hand, red against red. The shriek of the kyber crystals grates against her ears, a loud wailing she can’t shut out.

“Rey—”

She twists like lightning, slides her blade beneath his guard. A stroke meant to kill, but somehow it only disarms him. She moves to compensate, but a Force blow slams into her like a storm. She hits the dirt some thirty feet away, gasping for air. Her chest aches.

By the time she struggles to her feet, Resistance fighters are swarming her position. Sidious snarls at her to retreat, and so she does.

The man watches her with some terrible emotion as she goes, something she doesn't know how to parse. She can see it clear as the scar that cuts across his face, but it doesn’t matter. She’s in the TIE fighter, blowing out of atmo, gone.

...

The word whispers through the darkness, impossibly faint. Nearly drowned out by the cold and the harsh echoes of Sidious that never truly leave her, but there all the same.

She turns away from the sound; it haunts her still.

_Rey._

...

A desert planet this time, sandstorms brewing in the distance. Jakku? No. It’s jarring, not quite familiar. Bones jut up out of the sand, true skeletons instead of wrecked ships. The wind moans and cries, ragged and filled with grit.

She blinks sand from her eyes and raises her lightsaber. The man is there.

The man is always there.

She disarms him again, body already braced for the slamming pain of a Force blow, but it never comes.

Instead, the man spreads his hands, palms open, and lowers himself to his knees. Surrender.

Her blade kisses the air above his throat.

_Careful_, Sidious cautions. _Kill him only if you can’t turn him._

_Yes_, she thinks back. _Turn him._

Something about the phrase sinks deep into her bones, past the cold and the darkness and the fog of pain that shrouds her.

_You’ll be the one to turn._

“Rey,” says the man, and it burns through her like lightning, searing and inescapable.

“Don’t,” she snarls. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s your name,” he says, heedless of the crackling threat of her saberstaff, still held like a knife at his throat. “It’s who you are, even now.”

“I’m no one,” she says. It's the one truth she has left. Sidious goes quiet; in the silence, the hum of her blade sounds like the hiss and snap of a driftwood fire, burning steady against the night.

His hands are still spread. She can see every line on his palms, every scar, every callus. She knows those hands.

“You’re Rey,” the man says. “And you have to come back. Please.”

His hands…

The blade burns and burns, like fire, like a throne room, a dance painted red with blood and desperation. His hand, gloved, reaching out.

_You’re nothing. But not to me._

“Please,” he says again, and his voice cracks with that same terrible emotion. “I didn’t say it right before, but I love—”

Sidious is back, screaming in her head, pain lancing through her bones and jolting across her skin, but she _remembers_—

“Kylo,” she says, “Ben—”

He surges into motion, catching her as she falls, cradling her against his chest as she screams. She can still hear Sidious, feel his rage boiling through the Force as he loses yet another apprentice to the light, but Ben is holding her close, saying her name over and over like a prayer.

She clings to it, clings to him, and they run.

...

Rey wakes to warmth and fading pain.

Stars burn around her, here and gone in an instant, sliding past at hyperspeed. A familiar hyperdrive rumbles away in the back of the ship. She’s on the _Falcon_, wrapped in blankets and held close in familiar arms.

_I guess we were both right_, she wants to say, but all that comes are tears.

His hands move in gentle circles across her back as she cries, the simple comfort of touch grounding her as she tries to swim up through the memories, through the pain.

“It hurts,” she finally manages.

“I know,” he says. “It will pass, sweetheart.”

She feels small and weak and so very stupid. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he says.

More tears flood down her cheeks. One hand leaves her back, brushes away the salt.

_Seawater_, she thinks dimly. _I thought it was seawater._

“It will pass,” he says again, voice low and hoarse. “I swear, Rey.”

There’s a throbbing emptiness in her skull, ragged hollows where Sidious sunk his claws. She remembers the rage and the lightning, the absolute surety in his voice. The architect of so much destruction, hellbent on ruining everything she loves.

She remembers Ben, kneeling in front of her blade, ready to die if it meant he could save her.

Rey burrows deeper into his hold and rests her head against his chest. His heart beats steadily beneath her ear, _alive, alive, alive_.

Somehow, she believes him.


	2. Chapter 2

She dreams every night of lightning and laughter. The nightmares come and go as she shudders through a few hours of uneasy sleep, tossing and turning until she wakes up with a scream writhing her throat. She bites back the sound when she can, swallowing it down in the vain hope that if she’s silent, her distress won’t wake Ben.

And yet: it always does. 

Rey pushes her hair out of her eyes and tries to pretend her fear is under control. 

Luke’s voice drifts through her mind, faint and staticky. _Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi._

One of Ben’s memories, maybe, or a whisper through the Force. She doesn’t care which it is. Luke’s last act may have saved the Resistance, but he has no right to lecture anyone about fear. Luke Skywalker, legendary Jedi Master, who ran away and hid from the world the second it became too tough to face. Rey had more guts as a starving child on Jakku. And Ben— 

_Fuck off_, she snarls back at the voice. _Neither one of us is a Jedi._

Her heart is beating too fast, adrenaline pumping through her veins like she’s in a fight. She wants to hit something, but Luke—ghost or memory or something else entirely—is already gone. 

Beside her, Ben sits up, awake now as he always is after one of her nightmares. There are dark circles under his eyes, bruised and deep. He doesn’t say a word, just fights back a yawn and stretches out an arm, gathering her against him. She goes without protest. 

They sit quietly until the adrenaline has faded away, nothing left but exhaustion and the ever-present thrum of the bond. It’s a haunted thing now, full of grief and terror, but they cling to it all the same, desperate for the comfort of a shared heartbeat. 

It’s a thin comfort, but it’s what they have. Rey closes her eyes and focuses on the bond. On Ben. His hands slide into her hair, combing through the tangles until each one is gone. A gentle tug at her scalp tells her he’s started plaiting. It’s something he picked up from Leia when he was young and fidgety; complex Alderaanian styles occupied his hands and his mind, but more than that, they made his mother smile.

He weaves braids for strength and perseverance across the crown of her head, trellising into a single bun at the base of her skull. Each one he ties off with a knot that best translates as _cherished._ It turns the design from a simple warrior’s coiffure into something tender, something precious.

_Your strength is mine, as mine is yours. We are bound, beloved. Together we are victorious._

She’s nearly asleep when he’s finished, but that doesn’t stop tears from gathering behind her lids. He knows she’s sick of tears, so he ignores the saltwater dripping down her cheeks. Instead, he unwinds each plait with gentle hands. When her hair falls free around her face once more, he presses a kiss to her forehead and holds her until sleep claims them both.

This time, it is dreamless.

...

Stars slide by them as the _Falcon_ cruises steadily toward the Outer Rim. They’re headed back to Tatooine on a fool’s errand, searching for echoes in the Force. Shmi Skywalker, Leia said in her holomessage, or maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi. No mention of her brother, which suits Rey just fine. If Luke has anything else to say, he can just— wait his kriffing turn. 

Ben huffs out the ghost of a laugh, fingers flexing around the controls as amusement battles with pain; it hurts him to fly his father’s ship. He insists, though, so Rey lets him. 

Maybe someday it will be easier. Maybe someday the war will be over.

The thought echoes out between them, bleeding through the bond, sharp and hopeful.

They keep flying.

...

Tatooine hurts. 

The whole planet is a wound in the Force, ragged and aching. They haven’t even broken atmo and already it’s overwhelming. It feels like stepping into a waking nightmare: sand, wind, desolation. Memory upon memory of pain. Hers, Ben’s—

They bring the _Falcon_ down near an abandoned homestead. The Force ripples and seethes around it. Festering.

_We shouldn’t be here._

But they can’t turn back. Instead, they huddle together on the gangplank, staring out into the blue cloudless sear of the desert sky. 

“It might work,” Ben says eventually, deep voice worn painfully thin. She’s not the only one with nightmares. At night, he dreams of a broken mask and the raw, hissing static of a vocoder. At night, the dead speak. 

Rey clenches her hands into fists to hide their shaking. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

...

It works. 

There are echoes aplenty waiting for them in the Tatooine sand. Luke’s bone-deep need to escape. Leia’s fury, metallic and burning, and then viciously triumphant. Ben’s desperation, all his terror and grief at the sight of Rey in Sith black, eyes seared to yellow, saber red and screaming in her hand. 

That isn’t the end of it. Rey grips Ben’s hand in hers, white-knuckled as the next echo ripples over them, a howling gale that swallows them whole. 

The storm is Anakin Skywalker. Brimming with power, consumed by love and scourged by fear, a lifetime of pain turned outward to ravage the galaxy. The feel of it makes her want to scream. It makes her want to weep. 

_Padmé_, the storm cries. _Mother! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, come back!_

When the rage and sorrow have finally passed, Ben drops to his knees in the sand, gasping. She follows, wrapping herself around him like a clinging vine, holding him as he shakes and shakes and shakes. 

The wind stirs again, softer this time, but lonely, stars, so lonely.

A woman gleams in the Force. Faint, shadowed blue, her image is washed out and pale against the fierceness of the sky, but Rey knows in her bones this ghost is powerful. Face lined from years in the sun, weathered from years of grief, Shmi Skywalker stands before them with a bittersweet smile on her lips. 

_Oh_, she says, and the sound is like rain scattering on sand, soft, gentle, full of promise. _You remind me of my Ani._

...

They stumble back to the _Falcon_, shaken and heartsore. 

Neither of them sleeps that night.

**Author's Note:**

> [shrieks in reylo]
> 
> HOW 'BOUT THAT SIZZLE REEL, Y'ALL
> 
> title from florence + the machine's "are you hurting the one you love?" 
> 
> **update:** this is now a fix it fic, and also jj and terrio can eat my whole entire ass.


End file.
